MISSISSIPPI-MISSOURI. 



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PHIIiADEIiPHIA: 

J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY. 

1891. 



MISSISSIPPI-MISSOURI. 






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PHILADELPHIA: 

J. B. LTPPINCOTT COMPANY. 

1891. 



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Copyright, 1891, by J. B. Lippincott Company. 






MISSISSIPPI-MISSOURI. 



Mississippi-Missouri. The Mississippi River (Al- 
gonkin Missi Sipi, ' Great River'), the largest river of 
North America, is, with its tributaries, wholly within 
the boundaries of the United States. It drains most of 
the territory between the Rocky and Alleghany 
Mountains, embracing an area of 1,257,545 sq. m., or 
more than two-fifths of the area of the United States. 
This basin includes the minor basins: Lower Missis- 
sippi, 65,646 sq. m. ; Red River 92,721; Arkansas 
184,742; Missouri, 527,690; Upper Mississippi, 179,- 
635 ; Ohio, 207,1 1 1. Besides the four tributaries here 
named, there are forty-one others navigable, and 200 
more of moderate size. The total length of the Missis- 
sippi is 296omiles, of which 2 161 are navigable ; but the 
Missouri affluent (see below) is longer than the Upper 
Mississippi, and with the lower river gives a total of 
4200 miles. The total navigable waters amount to 
16,090 miles. 

The source of the Mississippi is Lake Itasca in the 
north-west central part of Minnesota, about 7 miles 
long by I to 3 wide, which has, however, several 
feeders, the principal being Elk or Glazier Lake. The 



4 MISSISSIPPI-MISSOURI. 

remotest springs of Itasca rise in 47° 34' N. lat, and 
95° 20' W. long., and are 1680 feet above sea-level. 
As it issues from this lake the Mississippi is about 12 
feet wide and 18 inches deep. Through pine-forests 
and swamps for hundreds of miles it winds from lake 
to lake, with frequent rapids and picturesque falls, until, 
1200 feet wide, at the city of Minneapolis it plunges 
over the Falls of St. Anthony. This point is the head 
of river-navigation, though in various reaches above 
small steamboats ply. After receiving the St. Croix, 
the Mississippi becomes the boundary between the 
states of Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, Arkansas, and 
Louisiana on the right, and Wisconsin, Illinois, Ken- 
tucky, Tennessee, and Mississippi on the left. Its 
frequent rapids within Minnesota are due to the 
granite bed, but sandstone prevails farther down, to 
Rock Island, Illinois, On the Wisconsin boundary 
the river expands into Lake Pepin, and thereafter, fully 
a mile wide, flows between bluffs 200 and 300 feet high, 
and sometimes through dense forests. At Rock 
Island there are rapids with 22 feet of fall, and 1 25 miles 
farther down are the Des Moines rapids with 24 feet 
of fall. Around these obstructions to navigation 
the United States government has constructed ship- 
canals. The entrance of the turbid Missouri produces 
a marked change in the character of the river; for 
several miles the diverse waters refuse to mingle, the 
Missouri's muddy tribute taking the right bank and 
the Upper Mississippi's clear stream the left. When 
the union is complete, the whole river has henceforth 
a light yellowish colour, modified somewhat by the 
Ohio's greenish water and more by the reddish water 



MISSISSIPPI-MISSO URL 



5 



of the Arkansas and Red. From the mouth of the 
Ohio the trough of the Mississippi is about 4470 feet 
wide, but as it approaches the Red it is narrowed to 
3000 feet, and at New Orleans is 2500 feet. The usual 
depth of the channel southward from the Ohio is from 
75 to 100 feet, and its surface is sometimes higher than 
the country beyond its banks. In fact, from the 
Missouri to the Gulf the Mississippi rolls in serpentine 
course through vast alluvial tracts or ' bottoms,' whose 
width varies from 30 to 150 miles. Their total area, 
including those along tributary streams, is variously 
estimated from 29,790 to 41,193 sq. m. Though of 
unsurpassed fertility, scarcely one-tenth of these lands 
are cultivated owing to the dangers of the annual 
overflow. The melting of the ice and snow in the 
upper basin swells the lower current from March to 
June. Levees or embankments, largely built by the 
government, now extend for more than 1600 miles. 
Between the Ohio and the Red rivers extraordinary 
floods, rising from 47 to 5 i feet, occur about once in ten 
years, making ' crevasses' in the levees, and doing 
immense damage. In these great floods the river has 
been known to spread over a tract of 1 50 miles. Below 
the Red River the waters are discharged through 
numerous ' bayous' into the Gulf of Mexico. The 
main channel runs south-eastward, and finally divides 
into five or six passes, the principal being the south, 
the north-east, and the south-west; the last is in 28° 
58-5' N. lat. and 89° 10' W. long. 

The mean velocity of the Lower Mississippi is 2)^ 
miles per hour. The yearly discharge into the Gulf is 
nearly 145 cubic miles ; the sedimentary matter carried 



5 MISSISSIPPI-MISSOURI. 

with this would form a prism i mile square and 263 
feet high, while the amount pushed along the bottom 
of the channel would make another i mile square and 
27 feet high. These vast deposits and the constant 
changes caused by floods tend to embarrass the entrance 
to the great river. To keep an open channel, at least 
20 feet deep, Captain Eads (q.v.) contracted with the 
United States government to erect and maintain a 
system of jetties at the South Pass. The construction 
was begun in 1875, and has proved highly successful, 
a depth exceeding 30 feet having been maintained. 
The mouth of the Mississippi is essentialy tideless. 

The principal cities on the great river are Minne- 
apolis, St. Paul, La Crosse, Dubuque, Keokuk, Quincy, 
Hannibal, St. Louis, Memphis, and New Orleans, at 
several of which the river is crossed by railway 
bridges. The steel bridge at St. Louis is the most 
southern, besides which another was connected at the 
same city in 18^0. 

See Humphrey's and Abbot's Physics and Hydraulics of the Missis- 
sippi Kiver (Phih. l86i), and Commerce and N'avigation of the Mis- 
sissippi (Washington, i8S8). 

Missouri River (' Big Muddy'), the principal branch 
of the Mississippi River, is formed by the confluence 
of the Jefferson, Gallatin, and Madison rivers, at 
Gallatin City, Montana, 4132 feet above the sea-level. 
These rivers rise in the Rocky Mountains, close to the 
sources of the Columbia and Colorado rivers, and to 
the Continental Divide. The Madison has the remotest 
source in a small lake of the same name in Yellow- 
stone National Park in Wyoming, 44° 19' N. lat. and 
110° 50' W. long., at an elevation of 7632 feet. This 



MISSISSIFPI- MISSO UR /. 7 

river flows north-west and north to the junction of the 
Three Forks. The Missouri then flows northward, 
skirting the main range of the Rocky Mountains, and, 
after passing through a gorge called ' The Gate of the 
Mountains,' turns to the north-east and reaches Fort 
Benton, the head of navigation, 225 miles from Galla- 
tin City. About 40 miles above Fort Benton are the 
Great Falls, where the river descends 327 feet in 15 
miles by a series of cataracts, the highest having a 
perpendicular fall of 87 feet. From Fort Benton the 
course is easterly, the river being flanked by bluffs 
about a mile apart until it passes the rapids 400 miles 
below, when the valley opens to a width of 10 miles. 
The Milk River is its first large tributary, but at the 
boundary of North Dakota the still larger Yellowstone 
joins it. The Yellowstone also rises in the National 
Park, and flows at first over cataracts and through 
canons until it emerges in a more level country. It is 
1 1 52 miles long, and has the general characteristics of 
the Missouri. From its junction, which is the head 
of navigation in low-water season, the Missouri flows 
through North Dakota, east and then south-east to 
Bismarck ( 1610 feet above sea-level), where it is crossed 
by the splendid bridge of the Northern Pacific Rail- 
road. Through South Dakota the south-easterly 
course continues to Sioux City, whence flowing south 
the river becomes the boundary between Nebraska 
and Kansas on the right and Iowa and Missouri on the 
left. On receiving the tributary Kansas the stream 
turns to the east, and flowing across the state of 
Missouri pours its muddy waters into the channel of 
the Mississippi, 20 miles above St. Louis. The 



8 MISSISSIPPI-MISSOURI. 

Missouri is 3047 miles long, of which 2682 are called 
navigable, but owing to its tortuous, treacherous, and 
obstructed channel navigation is attended with great 
risks. The growing cities on its banks forsake the use 
of the river for commercial purposes and depend on 
the railways. In 1866 there were seventy-one steam- 
ers in active service in that part within the state of 
Missouri, but twenty years later the number had 
diminished to seven steamers and three tow-boats. 
The chief towns on the banks are Bismarck, Yankton, 
Sioux City, Omaha, Council Bluffs, Nebraska City, St 
Joseph, Atchison, Leavenworth, and Kansas City. 



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